All Major U.K. Carriers Have Signed On To Carry BlackBerry 10 Smartphones

Things are looking up for RIM and its upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS and smartphones. In a sign of confidence for the BlackBerry maker, all of the major U.K. cellphone carriers have signed on to carry RIM's next generation smartphones when they are released in 2013.

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EE, O2, and Vodafone have publicly announced that they will all be carrying RIM's BlackBerry 10 smartphones. So far none of the U.K. carriers have released any information aside from announcing that they will be selling BlackBerry 10 smartphones once they are available.

This news couldn't come at a better time for RIM as it's really a sink-or-swim moment for the once market leader in the smartphone world. After some missteps and delays of BlackBerry 10, RIM seems ready to try and regain some of the market share it has lost over the years to the likes of Apple's iOS and Google's Android. RIM's global market share is currently at an all-time low of only 4.3%, so if it wants to stay in business, its life is riding on how well BlackBerry 10 does.

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On Monday, Canada's largest cellphone carrier, Rogers showed its confidence in RIM and BlackBerry 10 by allowing current customers to reserve the first BlackBerry 10 device once it's released some time in Q1 of 2013. Rogers has not released any press statements about how many customers have signed up and reserved the device, but that is to be expected especially since they are only letting customers know it will be an all-touch BlackBerry 10 smartphone. It did not provide any other details like price, date, and specs of the device. The device released will almost certainly be an L-series device due to it being a full touchscreen device.

Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile in the U.S. have all confirmed that they will support BlackBerry 10 and sell the smartphones when they're available in 2013. All of this support should help bring back some of the confidence RIM has lost over the years. It remains to be seen if BlackBerry 10 will be a success but all of this support should add confidence to RIM as it gets ready to battle for its survival.